|
We are brought thus to the conception of a Natural-Principle-
Time- a certain expanse [a quantitative phase] of the Life of the
Soul, a principle moving forward by smooth and uniform changes
following silently upon each other- a Principle, then, whose Act
is sequent.
But let us conceive this power of the Soul to turn back and
withdraw from the life-course which it now maintains, from the
continuous and unending activity of an ever-existent soul not
self-contained or self-intent but concerned about doing and
engendering: imagine it no longer accomplishing any Act, setting
a pause to this work it has inaugurated; let this outgoing phase
of the Soul become once more, equally with the rest, turned to
the Supreme, to Eternal Being, to the tranquilly stable.
What would then exist but Eternity?
All would remain in unity; how could there be any diversity of
things? What Earlier or Later would there be, what long-lasting
or short-lasting? What ground would lie ready to the Soul's
operation but the Supreme in which it has its Being? Or, indeed,
what operative tendency could it have even to That since a prior
separation is the necessary condition of tendency?
The very sphere of the Universe would not exist; for it cannot
antedate Time: it, too, has its Being and its Movement in Time;
and if it ceased to move, the Soul-Act [which is the essence of
Time] continuing, we could measure the period of its Repose by
that standard outside it.
If, then, the Soul withdrew, sinking itself again into its primal
unity, Time would disappear: the origin of Time, clearly, is to
be traced to the first stir of the Soul's tendency towards the
production of the sensible universe with the consecutive act
ensuing. This is how "Time"- as we read- "came into Being
simultaneously" with this All: the Soul begot at once the
Universe and Time; in that activity of the Soul this Universe
sprang into being; the activity is Time, the Universe is a
content of Time. No doubt it will be urged that we read also of
the orbit of the Stars being Times": but do not forget what
follows; "the stars exist," we are told, "for the display and
delimitation of Time," and "that there may be a manifest
Measure." No indication of Time could be derived from
[observation of] the Soul; no portion of it can be seen or
handled, so it could not be measured in itself, especially when
there was as yet no knowledge of counting; therefore the Soul
brings into being night and day; in their difference is given
Duality- from which, we read, arises the concept of Number.
We observe the tract between a sunrise and its return and, as the
movement is uniform, we thus obtain a Time-interval upon which to
measure ourselves, and we use this as a standard. We have thus a
measure of Time. Time itself is not a measure. How would it set
to work? And what kind of thing is there of which it could say,
"I find the extent of this equal to such and such a stretch of my
own extent?" What is this "I"? Obviously something by which
measurement is known. Time, then, serves towards measurement but
is not itself the Measure: the Movement of the All will be
measured according to Time, but Time will not, of its own Nature,
be a Measure of Movement: primarily a Kind to itself, it will
incidentally exhibit the magnitudes of that movement.
And the reiterated observation of Movement- the same extent found
to be traversed in such and such a period- will lead to the
conception of a definite quantity of Time past.
This brings us to the fact that, in a certain sense, the
Movement, the orbit of the universe, may legitimately be said to
measure Time- in so far as that is possible at all- since any
definite stretch of that circuit occupies a certain quantity of
Time, and this is the only grasp we have of Time, our only
understanding of it: what that circuit measures- by indication,
that is- will be Time, manifested by the Movement but not brought
into being by it.
This means that the measure of the Spheric Movement has itself
been measured by a definite stretch of that Movement and
therefore is something different; as measure, it is one thing
and, as the measured, it is another; [its being measure or] its
being measured cannot be of its essence.
We are no nearer knowledge than if we said that the foot-rule
measures Magnitude while we left the concept Magnitude undefined;
or, again, we might as well define Movement- whose limitlessness
puts it out of our reach- as the thing measured by Space; the
definition would be parallel since we can mark off a certain
space which the Movement has traversed and say the one is
equivalent to the other.
|
|